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kevin z | March 3, 2008
I'm reporting this week from the Ocean Sciences Meeting, the annual meeting of the American Society for Limnology and Oceanography (ASLO) and The Oceanographic Society (TOS). The first session I went to this morning was on Marine Predator hotspots. There were some interesting talks on megavertebrate distributions, diving behavior and habitat provisioning.
D.M. Palacios presented an interesting talk about is groups work on tagging and tracking albatross post-breeding habitat provisioning. They are looking at 2 species who breed together in the tropical Pacific: the Laysan and the Black-…
purepedantry | March 3, 20081) Two of my favorite bloggers -- Shelley Batts of Retrospectacle and Steve Higgins of OmniBrain -- have teamed up to form at group blog called Of Two Minds. Adjust your links accordingly.
2) Encephalon 40 is up at Mind Hacks. Thanks Vaughan!
cortex | March 3, 2008The Times has an interesting profile of Johan Santana, perhaps the most effective pitcher in baseball. What's interesting about Santana is that his secret isn't a 98 mph fastball or some wicked new breaking ball. Rather, he strikes out batters because he denies batters the perceptual cues they rely on when making batting decisions:
Whether Santana fires a fastball that zooms in at 90 to 94 miles an hour or flips a changeup that lumbers in at 77 to 80, he does everything exactly the same. He uses the same delivery, the same release point and the same exertion. Then he does it again and again.…
grrlscientist | March 3, 2008tags: blog carnivals, Gene Genie
The most recent edition of the Gene Genie is now available for you to enjoy. I am pleased to tell you that they included a contribution from me, too!
grrlscientist | March 3, 2008tags: blog carnivals, History Carnival
The 62nd edition of the History Carnival is now available for you to enjoy. I rarely have anything that is appropriate for this carnival, but this time I did, so be sure to check them out. And this is a big carnival, too, so there's plenty of interesting reading material there for your enjoyment, too.
petnoyer | March 3, 2008
Perhaps you thought houseboats were going out of style? Au contraire, sea levels are rising and coastal populations are increasing, so the land is disappearing while the density of residents grows. Life on the water seems like the perfect solution for some people, especially in Europe, where floating home designers are enjoying a renaissance.
Some countries, like Amsterdam, have a significant number of people living below sea level already, so Dutch and German designers are hoping to take their modern floating homes to the bank. American urban epicenters like Los Angeles, Seattle, and…
apalazzo | March 3, 2008Well this year will be known as the year that the LHC (Large Hadron Collider) at CERN was turned on. Will we find the Higgs Boson? Will we finally have data that supports Supersymmetry? For now enjoy these videos on the ATLAS detector:
ATLAS, A New Hope
ATLAS, The Particle Strikes Back (Part I)
ATLAS, The Particle Strikes Back (Part II)
gregladen | March 2, 2008
Normally, I keep my blog away from Squid and other cephalopods because I know that if PZ myers feels threatened, he may charge, and the squiggly molluscs are his bailiwick.
But, this evening at the Laden household analog of the dinner table, the question came up: "How many species of cephalopods are there, anyway? Huh?"
So I went on line to look, and before I got anywhere near the answer to this interesting question, I came across the Vampire Squid, Vampyroteuthis infernalis. This turns out to be an animal of great extremes....http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/site/accounts/…
grrlscientist | March 2, 2008I have wifi from my apt right now so here's an update. I called the ER because the pain is so terrible, still, and they told me there are no pain relievers that are stronger than what they gave me. So I am taking oxycodone and ibuprofen. I have to return to the hospital tomorrow morning to see an orthopedic surgeon so it looks as though surgery is still an option, and possibly likely based on what I've been told by others.
I am trying to distract myself from the pain by reading a book that one of my readers sent as a Christmas gift, The Good Fairies of New York by Martin Millar. I can only…
kevin z | March 1, 2008These chicas are freaky. But if you lived on a whale vertebrae and eat through bone, perhaps you'd be a little on the kinky side too, right? Osedax, the "bone-devouring" worm is weird. Now, I know long time Deep Sea News readers will be a little used to us talking about odd critters in the ocean, maybe you've come to expect it and are no longer shocked. We have even talked quite a bit about our good friend Osedax. But this is one critter that would infuse the pope with fear and disgust.
FIgure 3a from Rouse et al. 2008, whale vertebrae covered in Osedax roseus (arrows).
Rouse et al. 2008…
gregladen | March 1, 2008... at Further Thoughts.
Berry Go Round is a carnival for Plants. But you don't have to be a plant to submit a post. Just be interested in plants, generally from a biological and evolutionary perspective, not just, "I like plants, plants are cool."
The next edition will be hosted HERE, here.... where you are looking right now. So do send me your entries!
cmcclain | March 1, 2008As I write this post and sipping on my Organic Nueva Esperanza Coffee, I am happy. Part of it stems 3 cups of coffee previous to this one now flowing through my system. Mostly, it stems from knowing that my choice to drink this cup of coffee makes a difference in conserving the oceans. I firmly believe in the power of an individual to make impacts, both small and great, through daily choices. I also believe in the power of consumer choices as indicated by my previous challenges.
The Request: This week I ask you to think about your choices surrounding your coffee (or tea) consumption and…
grrlscientist | March 1, 2008You are not going to believe this, but last night, I fell and broke my left arm. I spent the night in the ER on morphine and in excruciating pain. The doctors cannot put a cast on the fracture because it is so close to my shoulder that they cannot immobilize it. So I have my arm in a sling and I can feel the ends of the fracture moving around in there and the pain is so terrible that it makes me vomit. But there is good news: it doesn't require surgery.
pharyngula | March 1, 2008I feel like I missed so much. MAJeff organized a gathering of Pharyngula readers, and it sounds like it was great fun, as a group of like-minded godless skeptics and rationalists used my web site as a mere pretext to justify meeting to drink bar and talk.
I'm superfluous to the whole affair, which is a little strange, but also reassuring. It's the opposite of the L. Ron Hubbard effect — what if you started a movement that wasn't a religion? You wouldn't get rich, you wouldn't get worshipped, you wouldn't even be personally necessary, and what you'd have instead is a whole lot of people…
kevin z | March 1, 2008CNN reports that Japan will meet with several International Whaling Commission members on Monday, preempting the meeting of the Commission by 3 days:
" Japan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the nation's fisheries agency will make their case to officials from Angola, Eritrea, Congo, Guinea, Ghana, Malawi, Tanzania, Palau, Micronesia, Cambodia, Laos and Vanuatu, ministry spokeswoman Eri Okabe told CNN. Several of the countries are new to the 78-member whaling commission.
Two months ago, Japan "temporarily halted" its plan for a humpback whale hunt in the seas near Antarctica as what it said…
grrlscientist | February 29, 2008tags: blog carnivals, Friday Ark
The most recent edition of the Carnival of the Spineless is now available for you to enjoy. The host, who is a pal of mine, asked me for a contribition, so I had to dig through my previous blog entries to find something that might be appropriate. I do what I can to support as many blog carnivals as possible, so you may or may not enjoy my meagre contributions ... you be the judge. But otherwise, do go there and support this blog carnival with your numbers and your comments!
grrlscientist | February 29, 2008tags: blog carnivals, Friday Ark
Yes, indeed, my friends, it is Friday once again, and as usual, my pal, The Modulator, has amassed a pile of links to ANIMAL IMAGES for you to enjoy in the 180th edition of the Friday Ark.
Did you know that this blog carnival began as a way to create a less contentious atomsphere on the internet, which had developed due to political sparring all week long, week after week? Anyway, in an effort to take a break from the fighting and to create a more congenial atmosphere, the political pundits began a campaign where they lowered their verbal armaments one day…
kevin z | February 29, 2008Picture copyright C. Fisher/Ridge2000
Brisingids look like crinoids, but they are actually sea stars, just kind of turned over. this particular beauty is Freyella sp. from near hydrothermal vents in the Lau Basin back-arc spreading center. They typically are on rock outcrop faces facing the current. Their tube feet are modified for filter-feeding.
That poor little squat lobster (Munidopsis, probably 'lauensis', Galatheidae) looks like he is being ambushed.
cortex | February 29, 2008Jim Holt has a great article on the strange neural anatomy of mathematics in the new New Yorker:
One morning in September, 1989, a forme sales representative in his mid-fortie entered an examination room with Stanisla Dehaene, a young neuroscientist based in Paris Three years earlier, the man, whom researcher came to refer to as Mr. N, had sustained a brai hemorrhage that left him with an enormous lesion in the rear half of his lef hemisphere. He suffered from severe handicaps: his right arm was in a sling; h couldn't read; and his speech was painfully slow. He had once been married,…